College basketball transfer portal winners and losers: Florida on the rise, Kansas in precarious situation

The window for college basketball players to enter the transfer portal has closed. Elite programs have offered top players NIL payouts worth millions of dollars. All but a few stragglers have made their decisions.

That means it’s an ideal time to identify the offseason’s biggest winners and losers.

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Here’s a list headlined by some teams who have successfully recruited and retained many of their most important players from last season and by some others who have swung and missed in the portal trying to patch holes:

WINNER: FLORIDA

Turns out there may not be much debate over next year’s preseason No. 1.

Florida is an obvious choice after retaining the core of last season’s 27-win team that won the outright SEC title by three full games and secured a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

The first big win for Florida was the return of 6-foot-11 forward Alex Condon, a borderline first-round pick who last season averaged a career-high 15.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.4 blocks. Then Todd Golden also persuaded 6-9 forward Thomas Haugh to postpone his NBA dreams another year even though he was projected to go somewhere in the middle of the first round had he remained in the draft. That means Florida could bring back three pillars of its frontcourt, assuming Rueben Chinyelu withdraws from the NBA Draft.

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It’s a given that Florida’s rebounding will be elite, as will its rim dominance at both ends of the floor. The backcourt also could be improved with point guard Boogie Fland and sniper Urban Klavzar returning and Denzel Aberdeen potentially coming back too after a one-year hiatus. Aberdeen will need a waiver to secure a fifth year of eligibility, no sure thing considering he appeared in 12 games as a true freshman.

Illinois is plugging and chugging with the addition of Stefan Vaaks, another European player, to its roster for next season. (Ishika Samant/Getty Images) (Ishika Samant via Getty Images)

WINNER: IILLINOIS

Only weeks after making the…

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Author : Jeff Eisenberg

Publish date : 2026-04-24 17:03:00

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